Friday, January 26, 2007

A move toward sanity

The NCAA is looking into getting an antitrust exemption for college sports. This would allow the association to place caps on coaches' salaries but not limit the money they receive from boosters and athletic wear companies. Apparently this action is one the NCAA has considered for a while now but a meeting (Chronicle of Higher Education--subscription only) of the Knight Commission earlier this week that addressed the issue of coaches' salaries--largely spurred by the recent announcement of Alabama football coach Nick Saban's $32 million contract!!--set the action in motion again.
Other happenings at the meeting: discussions about gender equity. Dr. Christine Grant, professor emeritus at University of Iowa and former Director of Women's Athletics spoke, about how the budgets of football and men's basketball have tripled and quadrupled, respectively, in the past two decades. Part of the increase is due to rising coaches' salaries.
Also on the agenda, recruiting practices, including the use of technology such as text messaging, to recruit athletes. Also a concern: recruiting websites that keep stats about athletes in what was termed a "dehumanizing" manner, but also are not accountable to any one if there are discrepancies reported.
Now that the issues are raised, we shall have to see what becomes of them.

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